Meet and Greet with Salesforce

On April 19, SWE UCLA hosted a Salesforce Infosession in Boelter. An active participant in UCLA’s college career fairs for multiple years, the representatives chose to augment their search for brilliant, talented engineers by partnering with SWE. The participating representatives included Annie Abrahamian, Jason Schroeder, Gerald Torres and Aditya Joshi—all of whom partook in an informative and engaging presentation, Q&A session, and meet and greet that detailed not only the various benefits of working for Salesforce in their local office in Santa Monica, but also the ongoing opportunities and positions available there. The representatives highlighted several insights on the interviewing process at Salesforce including the importance of asking questions and possessing a great, driving passion. They also expressed interest in hosting a “Shadow an Engineer Day” and continuing an involved connection with SWE UCLA in the future—so keep an eye for our upcoming events with Salesforce! Thank you to all who came and of course, to Salesforce for partnering with us and for the great food! 



Jessica Leung
Social Chair

Facebook: A look behind the popular social networking site

On Thursday, April 5^th, the newly remodeled ESUC lounge was overflowing with students interested in learning about and working for Facebook. One company representative, Jenae Replogle, flew down from Facebook’s office location in northern California to talk to UCLA engineering students about work-life at Facebook. She also talked about the company’s internship and full-time job opportunities for engineers. Although it was the recruiter’s first infosession, her presentation was interactive and stressed the relaxed work environment at Facebook. She also noted that Facebook is different in that its work culture has continued as if Facebook were still a start-up company, something that most companies back down on once making it big. The presentation was less than the allotted time of one hour, giving interested students a good amount of time to talk face-to-face with the recruiter. Resumes were given and connections were made. We hope that this will be the first of many Facebook infosessions hosted by SWE-UCLA.

Virginia Wei

Internal Vice President

Want to Know How to Lead?

On Saturday, April 7, 2012, five of our SWE-UCLA officers and our Alumni Advisor, Bill Goodin, joined student leaders from four other collegiate SWE chapters and leaders from two professional chapters in the SWE Los Angeles Collegiate Leadership Summit held at USC campus.  The event consisted of breakfast, two workshop sessions, lunch, and section planning session for the upcoming year, FY 12/13. The entire event was interactive, fun, and highly beneficial! All the student and professional members arrived to USC early on Saturday morning and enjoyed a delicious breakfast during which they got to know each other a little bit better through some fun ice breakers.  Rachel Morford, current SWE-LA President, greeted everyone and introduced them to the agenda for the day.  Attendees could choose between two different workshops offered during each breakout session. All the workshops were presented by trained SWE Leadership Coaches (members of the CLCC- Collegiate Leadership Coaching Committee) and were generously sponsored by Agilent Technologies. 

During the first breakout session, students could attend either SWE Officer Training module or Hit the Ground Running module. In the SWE Officer Training students were introduced the multilevel SWE organization, mission and goals of the society, numerous resources available to all SWE leaders, as well as detailed roles and responsibilities of various SWE officer positions.  Hit the Ground Running module provided our officers with helpful tips on making the transition between college and the real world career and between collegiate and professional SWE membership. During the second breakout session the two workshop options were Strategic and Tactical Planning, and Dealing with Leadership Burnout. The first module explained some great tools for planning the future goals and plans for SWE chapters. Students even got a chance to work through a sample strategic and tactical plan for their sections! During the Dealing with Leadership Burnout module students learned how to recognize the signs of someone reaching a potential burnout and how to deal with such situation. After the two breakout sessions, all the Summit participants gathered for lunch and interactive planning session, where they could apply their newly acquired skills into action! We are looking forward to future events like this!

Aleksandra Mstowska

President

Dumplings, Mentorship, Socializing, and more!

On the Thursday night of April 26th, as our executive board meeting wound to an end, SWE mentors, mentees, and members gathered around to cook dumplings for our SWE Dumpling Mentorship Social. Our wonderful Team Tech Director, Jessye Palladino, had lent us her awe-inspiringly giant rice cooker pot, and our incoming Social Chair, Sushma Murthy, brought in a petite, fast cooker. As we waited for the dumplings to reach a lovely piping hot temperature, mentees and mentors took the opportunity to catch up with each other’s lives and talk about their summer and future plans. Mentors and members were able to offer up sage advice on their own experiences with summers and how their mentees could better prepare for their second year at UCLA.

After everyone had taken their seats and were enjoying their plates of delicious dumplings with fragrant soy sauce, we were placed in three groups of around 3-4 people each for a Jeopardy throw-down. The five categories were: UCLA Trivia, Cartoon Characters (Charades), Scientists (Charades), Popular Songs, and Disney Characters. We were alternatively stumped by boggling questions such as how many UCLA Alumni are still alive in the world (359,268), or trying to guess the identity of a cartoon character from a creative charades performance. Right before the jeopardy question, teams 1 and 2 were in the strong lead with scores at around three hundred, with team 3 bringing up the end with 180 points. With team 3 betting all of their points, and team 2 betting all but one of theirs, we waited with tense anticipation for the answer to “What was the oldest residential hall built at UCLA?” to be announced. The result (Dykstra!) was team 1 pulling ahead with 390 points, team 3 in second with 360 points, and team 2 with 1 point. We presented the winners of team 1 with a mini t-shirt each, which they modeled for their champion portrait. Amidst laughter and dumplings, new friendships formed and old ones strengthened.


Amy Lin
Mentorship Chair

E-Week at UCLA: E for Engineering

Every year the Engineering Society of UCLA hosts Engineers’ Week during spring quarter, bringing fun events to us overworked and overtired engineering students at UCLA. Engineering Week at UCLA kicked off with much excitement, but weather that proved to be an obstacle. Monday night, engineers gathered at Kerckhoff Grand Salon to show off their talents (other than math and science). Brian Walz, a third year civil engineer, won the show singing and playing guitar. Congratulations to Brian and all the other competitors! Tuesday started getting cloudy, but luckily the rain held off for a barbeque in the Court of Sciences. Engineering organizations on campus (including SWE!) all came out to table in the court and talk to students about projects they’ve done this year and still have coming up. Kid’s Day at UCLA was scheduled for Wednesday, April 11. About 75 kids were going to come see UCLA and do science experiments with engineering students. Due to some unfortunate weather, the event was cancelled and will be moved to later this quarter or next year. So look out for opportunities to get involved with this event in the future! A lot of planning and hard work was put into this event and SWE was proud to be a part of the fun!

Amanda West
Membership Chair 

JPL Women's Day

On March 8^th, the SWE President and Social Chair attended a Women’s History Month event hosted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. Greeting the chilly morning air at seven, attendees arrived from a large variety of universities and colleges all over the Los Angeles area, not to mention some local high schools as well. Participants were then escorted to an amphitheater in the heart of the Pasadena laboratory where not even the abnormally cold weather could dampen the palpable excitement.

The grounds themselves possessed that same air of bottled excitement, but this time with more subtlety and maturity. Masked behind a façade of guarded chain-link fences, sterile architecture, and harsh concrete lay discoveries of mind-boggling ingenuity and creativity—most on the verge of being titled incredible. The women walking throughout the campus, on their way to an office or a laboratory, held within them some latent spark of genius that would pave a way towards something big, something that could help enlighten the world.

But nothing is as it seems to be: no innovation and accompanying acknowledgement is without its struggles. The panelists at JPL could not have made the gravity of this statement any clearer. The wide spectrum of women employees from JPL chosen to speak at the event ranged all over the various engineering fields as well as a large band of ages—their selection was, needless to say, perfect. Each woman had a story to share, an opinion to voice and sage advice to offer. The trials of a woman working in a man’s word was a paramount theme throughout the presentation and in one of the top concerns of the audience during the question and answer session. But most worries were laid to rest as the panelists, confidently assured in their positions and lives, continued their tales of success and triumph.

Women have accomplished much since the days of gender discrimination, becoming pioneers and leaders in a wide variety of previously male-dominated subjects. JPL highlighted numerous examples in their panelists and put together a true celebration of women’s achievements.

Jessica Leung

Social Chair

Evening With Industry: A Night with Engineering Companies

Over 200 students from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences gathered on February 7^th, 2012 in Covel Commons to dine with 30 company representatives in this year’s 35^th Annual Evening with Industry hosted by the Society of Women Engineers.

The evening started off with light refreshments and hors d’ourves, allowing students to interact with the company representatives participating in the formal three course dinner and exclusive career fair. After some light conversation and networking, all the students were invited into the Covel Grand Horizon Room to enjoy the formal dinner and learn more about the various companies in attendance. There to welcome the students and company representatives was Dean Vijay Dhir, the Dean of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at UCLA. He applauded the prerogative of all the students in attendance, reminding them to become the next generation of innovators, thinkers, and researchers.

Over a delicious three course meal of salad, roasted chicken, and cheesecake, students got the opportunity to network with two company representatives. The companies in attendance included major engineering industries, such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Blizzard Entertainment, Intel, and ConocoPhillips (please refer to the SWE-UCLA website for the full list of attending companies), with the goal of hiring for internship, co-op, and full time positions. Students were encouraged to ask about the company culture and the representatives’ personal experiences, learning more about how the industry operates and what the representatives are looking for in a potential candidate.wing students to interact with the company representatives participating in the formal three course dinner and exclusive career fair. After some light conversation and networking, all the students were invited into the Covel Grand Horizon Room to enjoy the formal dinner and learn more about the various companies in attendance. There to welcome the students and company representatives was Dean Vijay Dhir, the Dean of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at UCLA. He applauded the prerogative of all the students in attendance, reminding them to become the next generation of innovators, thinkers, and researchers.

After the meal, guest speaker Maryam Rofougaran, the Vice President of Radio Engineering at Broadcom Corporation and an alumni holding both a Bachelors and Masters degree in Electrical Engineering, spoke about her very personal and inspirational experiences. Maryam recounted her journey through education from Iran to Germany and eventually to the United States and UCLA. She also discussed the many struggles she came across and how she learned to move forward while still maintaining a good work and life balance. She then concluded her speech with useful advice, telling the students to pursue their dreams and work towards what they enjoy, quoting Steve Jobs’ Stanford graduation speech saying “Stay hungry, Stay foolish.”

Following the guest speaker, a few lucky students won large raffle prizes, including the complete set of games by Blizzard Entertainment and a Sony internet TV and blu-ray player courtesy of Intel. With the dinner drawing to a close, the sponsors and guests of honor which included Bill Goodin, Andrea Kasko, Dean Dhir, Aditi Gobburu, and Maryam Rofougaran, and the committee members were all thanked for their continual support and dedication to this event.

All students and companies were then dismissed from the dinner and allowed to enter the career fair where they had the opportunity to hand out resumes and network with the numerous companies in attendance. Only the students in attendance at EWI were able to attend the career fair, allowing for a more intimate interaction between the students and the company representatives than the fall and winter Engineering and Technical career fairs.

Prior to February 7^th, 2012, the EWI Co-chairs Ariana Thacker and Nadine Wong along with a team of 7 SWE members worked to recruit companies, advertise the event to the student body, sell tickets to maximum capacity, plan the catering and parking, orchestrate the transportation of the companies’ career fair equipment into Covel Commons, as well as a number of other tasks. Despite the continued economic difficulties and raised costs of catering and supplies, roughly 30 companies registered for the event. Additionally, many companies and the Engineering Alumni Association provided additional financial support to the program by sponsoring the printing of the programs (Xerox), providing raffle prizes, and supporting SWE – UCLA (Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Conocophillips, and Cisco).

Evening with Industry proved once again to be a highly successful and well received event by both students and companies. For many students it was their first time going to a recruiting event or career fair and this exposure helped ease them into a professional setting. Feedback was very positive and the event resulted in increased membership, company relations and publicity for SWE – UCLA.

Ariana Thacker

EWI Internal Co-Chair

Broadcom Info Session

SWE kicked off the new year with an information session hosted by Broadcom on Thursday of Week 1. This company has deep UCLA roots, our very own Henry Samueli co-founded Broadcom! Three representatives, one recruiter and two UCLA engineering alumni, came to talk to engineering students about opportunities at Broadcom and some general tips on how to prepare for a career fair. The representatives stressed proper hygiene, researching companies before-hand, and sounding genuinely excited about being at a career fair in order to make a great impression. When it comes to resumes, the representatives advised students to be specific about what they really want to do and their career objectives. In addition, be sure to include all course work relevant to the company you are applying at. Many students attended this event reflecting the student body interest in Broadcom. The representatives, in turn, loved being back at UCLA and keeping the UCLA-Broadcom bond strong!

Amanda West

Membership Chair

Arete: An Employee-Owned Company

On February 23rd, 2012, UCLA engineers got to know more about Arete, who they are, what they specialize in, and the opportunities they offer. Needless to say there are countless things about Arete that many did not know about - such as the fact that they are an employee-owned company that specializes in improving national security technologies. Though that might not sound like much, Nancy Balbuena and Emily Dunkel from Arete came to inform people otherwise. Emily managed to portray unclassified projects that Arete tends to take on, which are heavily technical-based tasks. One example given during their one-hour presentation was of cameras that are attached to the top of submarines. These cameras enable submarines to know what is floating on the surface of the water, whether it be an unexpected ship or something of that sort. However, waves cause fluctuations in the camera view as well - causing the viewer to risk feeling sea-sick himself when watching recorded video clips. Arete developed an algorithm using the sky as a reference point to fix this problem. What resulted from this was a panoramic, steady, accurate representation of the 360 degree view at water level. Amazing innovations such as these are what makes Arete a competitive, technical company. After that, who wouldn't want an opportunity to work for them and gain experience?

Christine DeSario

Outreach Director

What's Inside the Little Black Bag?

On January 26, SWE-UCLA hosted an infosession with Little Black Bag, an online fashion start up that just recently launched. Shelli Victorino, the Products Manager had an awesome presentation of the company and on the topic "working as a developer at a startup". She opened the eyes of engineers to a whole other world, where female engineers can work in the fashion industry. Many of our SWE members were very excited to purchase their very own Little Black Bag after attending this infosession. She accepted resumes and handed out a discount for a bag!

Emily Cheung

Webmaster